The Evolution of Expression: What Music, Writing, and Neuroscience Reveal About Healing

Across civilizations, time and space, music has accompanied rituals, celebrations, healing ceremonies, worship, and storytelling.

Ancient Greek philosophers viewed music as a force capable of shaping emotion, state, and identity.

Aristotle described music as "a force that purified the emotions," while Plato believed music "attuned the soul to the cosmos".

Traditional Chinese medicine similarly believed music to possess a "quasi-magical transformative power" that extended beyond simple entertainment (Babikian et al., 2013).

The consistency of these perspectives across time and cultures

= does music's universality point to something deeper?

From an evolutionary perspective, behaviors that persist often serve an adaptive purpose.

Perhaps music has endured because it offers something: a way to regulate ourselves through expression.

Expression = To Express = Release

But the readings suggested that music and expression do more than regulate emotion. Again and again, they returned to the idea of identity. Whether helping adolescents explore who they are, individuals with neurological disorders reconnect themselves, or participants in therapeutic songwriting reflect on life narratives, music appeared to preserve and express the self. That observation made me wonder whether one reason music has persisted throughout human history is because it doesn't simply change our emotional state, it helps us remember who we are. 

This idea became even more compelling when connecting literature on music with the literature on expressive writing.

At first glance, they appear to describe different interventions. Yet both seem to involve the same underlying process: transforming an internal experience into something external.

Music transforms emotion into sound, whether you're songwriting, or singing along.

Expressive writing transforms emotion into language.

Both create opportunities for experiences that might otherwise remain suppressed or unprocessed to become organized, expressed, and integrated.

Pennebaker and Chung (2011) found that significant improvements in both physiological and psychological health occur when individuals write or talk about personally upsetting experiences. Conversely, experiences that remain inhibited or unspoken are associated with rumination, physiological stress responses, disruptions in social networks, and unhealthy coping behaviors, all of which can significantly alter lifestyle health.

Rather than simply "getting feelings off our chest," expressive writing appears to help organize thoughts and emotions into a coherent narrative, allowing internal experiences to become something the mind can process.

Detangling the knot.

In many ways, expressive writing feels like slowly detangling a knot. Thoughts that once existed as an overwhelming tangle become organized into something the mind can hold.

Music appears to accomplish something remarkably similar.

Neuroimaging studies demonstrate that listening to music recruits widespread brain networks involved in emotion, reward, cognition, sensation, and movement (Babikian et al., 2013). Music-based interventions have shown therapeutic benefits for individuals recovering from stroke, Parkinson's disease, autism, and dementia by promoting neuroplasticity and engaging neural pathways that remain intact (Thompson & Schlaug, 2015). Rather than simply producing pleasant feelings, music appears capable of reorganizing how the brain processes emotion, movement, memory, and communication.

Perhaps this also helps explain why music can feel so deeply personal. Unlike many other interventions, music simultaneously engages memory, emotion, movement, and identity, allowing people not only to process experiences but to reconnect with parts of themselves that illness, trauma, or stress may have obscured.

This suggests the ability of music to promote neuroplasticity.

One finding that particularly stood out to me was that the reason we listen to music matters. While music listening generally improved stress and mood, Feneberg et al. (2023) found that listening primarily as a distraction was associated with higher stress and lower mood over time. I found this fascinating because it suggests that music itself is not inherently therapeutic.

Our relationship with music matters.

As someone who genuinely loves music, I've noticed that during periods of significant stress or nervous system overload, even my favorite songs can begin to feel overstimulating. Those moments have taught me that regulation is not always about adding more input. Sometimes the most restorative choice is silence, reflection, or release. Simply creating space to process what is already present.

Therapeutic Songwriting

This also helped me better appreciate the discussion of therapeutic songwriting.

Songwriting seems to bridge both expressive writing and music, combining language, creativity, rhythm, and emotional processing into a single experience.

MacDonald (2013) describes how therapeutic songwriting fosters self-exploration, perspective shifts, identity development, and flow. This flow state allows individuals become so immersed that their perception of time changes. Participants described songwriting not only as emotionally meaningful but also as an opportunity to create "a satisfying artistic product."

I realized that this may explain why people often describe songwriting as healing even when no one else ever hears the finished song. The act of expression itself may be the intervention.

Perhaps that became my greatest takeaway from these readings is that healing often begins by transforming an internal experience into something external. Whether through writing, singing, composing, singing along to your favorite songs, or simply listening with intention. Expressive practices appear to help regulate physiology, reorganize cognition, preserve identity, and deepen connection with ourselves and others. 

Allowing what is internal to become external.

If music has survived across every culture and throughout human history, perhaps it has done so not simply because it is enjoyable, but because expression itself has always been essential to being human.

References:

Babikian, T., Zeltzer, L., Tachdjian, V., Henry, L., Javanfard, E., Tucci, L., Goodarzi, M., & Tachdjian, R. (2013). Music as medicine: A review and historical perspective. Alternative and Complementary Therapies, 19(5), 251-254.  https://doi.org/10.1089/act.2013.19510Links to an external site.

Pennebaker, J. W., & Chung, C. K. (2011). Expressive writing: Connections to mental and physical health. In H. S. Friedman (Ed.), Oxford handbook of health psychology (pp. 417-437). Oxford University Press.

Thompson, W. F., & Schlaug, G. (2015). The healing power of music. Scientific American Mind, 26(2), 32-41.  https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamericanmind0315-32 Links to an external site.

Feneberg A. C., Stijovic A., Forbes P. A. G., Lamm, C., Piperno, G., Pronizius, E., Silania, G., & Nater, U. M. (2023). Perceptions of stress and mood associated with listening to music in daily life during the COVID-19 lockdown. JAMA Network Open, 6(1), e2250382.  https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.50382Links to an external site.

Macdonald, R. (2013). Music, health, and well-being: A review. International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-Being, 8, 1-13.  https://doi.org/10.3402/qhw.v8i0.20635Links to an external site.